Diabetes Cases Have Quadrupled In Just Over 3 Decades

In 1980, 108 million adults had diabetes. That number jumped to 422 million adults in 2014.

The number of people living with diabetes has quadrupled over the past three decades, according to the World Health Organization’s first Global Diabetes report.

Researchers found diabetes killed 1.5 million people in 2012 and another 2.2 million died from high blood-glucose.

The WHO report also stated, “43 percent of these 3.7 million deaths occur before the age of 70 years. The percentage of deaths attributable to high blood glucose or diabetes that occurs prior to age 70 is higher in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries.”

In 1980, 108 million adults had diabetes. That number jumped to 422 million adults in 2014.

Researchers note the rise in type 2 diabetes is linked to the global increase in the number of people who are overweight or obese. In 2014, almost one in four adults aged over 18 years was overweight, and more than one in ten were obese.

The WHO says society must work together to tackle the disease, which costs an estimated $827 billion dollars each year in patient care and medicine. According to the WHO, “Diabetes and its complications bring about substantial economic loss to people with diabetes and their families, and to health systems and national economies through direct medical costs and loss of work and wages. While the major cost drivers are hospital and outpatient care, a contributing factor is the rise in cost for analogue insulins 1, which are increasingly prescribed despite little evidence that they provide significant advantages over cheaper human insulins.”

Watch Roland Martin discuss the shocking increase in the number of global diabetes cases in the NewsOne Now video clip above.